The last segment focused on Sherry’s disappointment and sadness. That image of Sherry crying while looking out at the Tokyo skyline at night, the back of her head to us, is the last we’ll see of the character.

I posed the question yesterday: if NJ understands Sherry better than anyone, then who understands NJ? What was it that he sought in the revival of his one great love?

Even when opening up his heart, NJ can’t bring himself to express his feelings directly. Instead, he offered a negation — I haven’t loved any other woman. That doesn’t actually affirm his feelings, it merely excludes the rest of feminine humanity from the equation.

But his intent was obvious and you have to think this was his unconscious objective all along. NJ didn’t want to tear apart his life and begin a new one with Sherry. He just wanted to finally tell her the thing he’s carried his whole life, that he could never tell her before. He loves her.

This segment begins in the wake of that declaration. He is having his big business dinner with Ota. The game developer is in his element, showing off some card tricks with NJ, who is eating it up. Ota declares that he has no magic, but he’s concerned that NJ’s company wants someone who will magically fix their problems. NJ is about to tell him that they are ready to sign a contract, but Ota again asks him to hold off. He tells NJ that he is a good man, and we are left in this moment with a big silence, interrupted only by a waiter (speaking Japanese, so NJ won’t understand him) certain that the two were gambling and wanting to know who won.

When Ota proclaims NJ’s goodness, I feel that he’s really talking about his innocence, perhaps even naïveté. Many characters in the film can pass as a stand in for Edward Yang, but I believe Ota is the cleanest expression of Yang as artist. In the Ota/NJ relationship, we get a template for how Yang views the film business, filled with insincere promises and quiet double-crosses. Ota, perhaps, sees the double cross before NJ does and he absolves him of his company’s crime.

When NJ gets back to his hotel room, we assume he goes to sleep, because the film jumps to the next morning.

He gets a call from Taipei — come back home right away, we closed the deal with Ato, the copycat. NJ, who is sitting on the bed, his back to us, is upset by the news and hangs up. He sits silent for a few beats, taking it in. Then he gets up to pace and the phone rings again. The colleague has called back, tells NJ not to be upset, its just business, they should celebrate the success.

This time the camera is capturing NJ from the front, and his response is anger and hurt. He explodes: “Mr. Ota is a good man! Where is our dignity?” He hangs up again.

He goes looking for Sherry, having promised the day before to have breakfast with her. But a maid informs him that she has checked out. He then sits on the bed, his back to the camera again, and calls down to the front desk, they confirm her exit and declare that she left no note. He thanks the man on the line and hangs up. He then sits in silence, exposing again the back of his head.

This terrible morning, his newfound love reverie has come to an end. And a budding friendship, one that made him feel appreciated and seen, is over as well.

NJ is left to process a strange mix of emotions — likely some guilt for the way he treated Sherry and also for being part of a scheme that ultimately ripped off Ota. But Edward Yang doesn’t want us to think of these episodes, or the trip to Tokyo, as an episode of disappointment for NJ. It’s just one more moment in life, one small lesson, and in the film’s final moments, it will help crystalize for NJ the values he holds and the reasons he has for living.